How Does eBay Make Money? eBay Business Model (2026)

How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.

What drives eBay’s revenue

eBay reports two revenue activities. Marketplace revenues, $9,107 million in fiscal 2025, are mainly commissions: final value fees, listing fees, feature fees and foreign exchange fees, plus store subscriptions and shipping fees. Discounts, coupons and rewards are deducted from them. Advertising revenues, $1,993 million, are mostly fees sellers pay to promote their listings, plus some third-party advertising.

eBay says its revenue is ‘primarily derived from a take rate on the GMV’ that passes through its marketplaces. In 2025, GMV was $79,609 million and the take rate was 13.94%. At year-end eBay had 135 million active buyers and 2.5 billion live listings.

How eBay compares

Against its own history, revenue of $11,100 million in fiscal 2025 is the highest in the past five years. It was $10,420 million in fiscal 2021, $9,795 million in 2022, $10,112 million in 2023 and $10,283 million in 2024.

Advertising is the faster-growing line. It grew 22% in 2025, against 5% for Marketplace revenues on the as-reported basis, and made up about 18% of net revenues (calc: 1,993 / 11,100). By geography, the US brought in $5,789 million (52%) and international markets $5,311 million (48%), even though 51% of GMV was generated outside the US.

Side by side: the income statements

Etsy: income statement →Vinted: income statement →Sea: income statement →

What changed in FY2025

Net revenues rose 8%. eBay attributes the rise to higher GMV, more first-party advertising and the ramp-up of its UK shipping programme, partly offset by lower fees from its UK consumer-to-consumer initiative. The take rate rose from 13.77% to 13.94%.

Profit did not keep pace. Operating income slipped to $2,277 million from $2,318 million, and the operating margin fell to 20.5% from 22.5%. eBay cites one-off legal and restructuring costs in general and administrative expenses, which rose 31% to $1,198 million, and higher shipping costs. Net income was $2,031 million. eBay bought Caramel and Tise during the year and, in February 2026, agreed to buy Depop for about $1.2 billion in cash.

What to watch

Trade policy. The US ended its $800 de minimis exemption for all parcels on 29 August 2025, and eBay says this ‘fundamentally’ changes how cross-border transactions are handled. The EU plans to end its EUR 150 exemption in July 2026. eBay also reports more cancelled orders as users adjusted to new US trade policies.

Shipping economics and integration. Shipping costs rose by $108 million in 2025, and transaction losses rose 12% to $396 million, partly because of the shipping programmes. The Depop deal was expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

Frequently asked questions

How does eBay make money?

Mainly from fees on goods sold through its marketplaces. In fiscal 2025, Marketplace revenues, mostly commissions such as final value fees, were $9,107 million of $11,100 million in net revenues. Advertising, mostly sellers paying to promote listings, added $1,993 million.

What is eBay's take rate?

13.94% in fiscal 2025, up from 13.77% in 2024. eBay defines it as net revenues ($11,100 million) divided by GMV ($79,609 million).

How many buyers does eBay have?

135 million active buyers at the end of 2025, up from 134 million at the end of 2024. An active buyer is an account that paid for a transaction in the previous 12 months.

Is eBay profitable?

Yes. In fiscal 2025, operating income was $2,277 million, an operating margin of 20.5%, and net income was $2,031 million.

For a deeper analysis of how AI is restructuring business models across industries, read From SaaS to AgaaS on The Business Engineer.

eBay’s core business is a platform business model that makes money from transaction fees through its marketplaces. In short, eBay primarily makes money by charging fees on successfully closed transactions. For instance, in 2022, on a $73.9 billion worth of gross merchandise value sold on eBay, the company generated $9.79 billion in revenues at a 13.25% take rate (fee).

eBay origin story

At the end of 2021, eBay had 147 million active buyers and 17 million sellers, which drove over $87 billion in Global Merchandise Volume (the volume of successful transactions that happened on the platform). 

eBay Inc. was formed as a sole proprietorship in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar.

Before that, on Labor Day of 1995, eBay was called Electronic Bay, then Auction Web eBay, and it had no guarantees, no fees, or any mechanism to moderate disputes on the platform, nor payments platforms integrate (eBay would, later on, purchase PayPal, that would be then spun-off in 2015).

As the story goes, cheques would start to pile up so much on Pierre Omidyar’s desk that he had to move those to a business account finally and scale what would become one of the most valuable internet companies, which would IPO by September 1998 (about three years after its launch).

Back in 1998, that is how the company would get described in its financial prospectus:

eBay is the world’s largest and most popular person-to-person tradingcommunity on the Internet. eBay pioneered online person-to-person trading by developing a Web-based community in which buyers and sellers are brought together in an efficient and entertaining auction format to buy and sell personal items such as antiques, coins, collectibles, compute — as explored in the economics of AI compute infrastructure — rs, memorabilia,stamps and toys.

eBay Financial Prospectus of 1998

By 1998 eBay was growing at a staggering rate. 

eBay business overview

eBay Inc. is a global marketplace platform, which today primarily consists of transaction revenues and marketing revenues: 

• The core Marketplace platform includes the online marketplace, like ebay.com, and its mobile apps.
• Other services offered on top of its platforms: those are services meant to support the activity of third-party sellers on the platform.

What’s eBay’s unique business advantage?

We are fiercely loyal in protecting eBay’s unique advantage as a true marketplace in service of small independent businesses, consumer sellers, and buyers, and working to dramatically simplify the buyer and seller experience.

As the 2018 Shareholders’ Letter mentioned, eBay highlights its crucial strength of empowering independent sellers and businesses.

That is a crucial point to emphasize, as it enables us also to understand why eBay is at its core platform business model, and how it is different from other companies like Amazon.

What are the core value propositions of eBay?

As a platform business model eBay has two core players:

• Buyers
• And sellers

They both enable the platform to be successful. Indeed, to offer great value to the buyer, the platform is centered on great variety.

And to be valuable to sellers, it has to attract a broad range of buyers willing to buy any object on the platform.

The company is focusing in the coming years toward:

• Evolving to a managed marketplace.
• Building a foundational product catalog.
• Managing the end-to-end payment process.
• Offering great selection and value.

Great selection and value are at the core of the eBay business model, which includes “new, everyday items as well as rare and unique goods.”

What value does the platform drive for each of its key players?

eBay value propositions for buyers

For buyers, eBay offers:

• Expansive inventory at a usually good value.
• Multiple delivery options.
• eBay’s 110% Best Price Guarantee (in the US for certain categories of products).
• Offerings below $10.
• Money-Back Guarantee and eBay Authenticate (a mechanism checking the authenticity of certain categories of products).

eBay value propositions for sellers

For sellers, eBay offers:

• The choice to list products and services through fixed-price listings or an auction-style format.
• Ability to list items that are newly refurbished, used, and rare.
• Promoted Listings.
• eBay’s Top-Rated Seller program.
• Insights on optimal listing and pricing through the Seller Hub portal.

How is the eBay business model different from Amazon? A platform business model at its core

Unlike other digital commerce businesses, we don’t compete with our sellers and we refuse to compromise the shopping experience to push “house brands” and irrelevant posts. Millions of small businesses and consumers sell only on eBay. I believe it’s because of our purpose and policies — this matters to customers. We fundamentally object to unnaturally bundling services to overcome barriers to competition. At eBay, we empower third party sellers to thrive, which actually serves consumers seeking value and selection. We are a benchmark on this. We always have been.

In its 2018 Shareholders’ Letter, eBay emphasizes the fact that the platform doesn’t compete against its third-party sellers, as it happens instead on a platform like Amazon, which, while enabling third-party sellers to host their products on top of Amazon e-commerce, it still also features its own branded products.

This is a key difference between eBay and Amazon.

In addition, where Amazon takes the money from transactions, then pays a fee to third-party sellers. eBay, instead, primarily takes a fee on a successful transaction.

In short, Amazon’s key strength is managing the cash generated through the platform.

EBay’s primary strength is its ability to connect buyers and sellers on various items not necessarily available elsewhere.

How does eBay make money?

eBay makes money in three ways:

• Primarily through fees collected on successfully closed sales on eBay.
• And other seller services are offered on top of its marketplaces.

eBay made over $9 billion in transaction revenues from marketplace fees in 2021. At the same time, it made around $650 million in marketing services in the same year. 

What are the key metrics to understand eBay’s business model?

Each company’s business model has its logic, and as such, it measures its success through a set of metrics.

For eBay, those are:

• Gross merchandise volume.
• And transaction take rate.

Gross merchandise volume

Gross Merchandise Volume (“GMV”) is defined as the volume of successfully closed transactions between users on eBay Marketplace and StubHub platforms.

This is a useful metric to understand the volume of transactions happening on the platform.

In 2021, the GMV was over $87 billion.

Transaction take rate

The transaction take rate is given by the Marketplace net transaction revenues divided by Marketplace GMV.

For instance, the transaction take rate in the eBay marketplace was around 11.9% in 2021.

The ability of the platform to increase its transaction rate over time while keeping its buyers and sellers community thriving is a signal of the platform’s strength.

It means the platform has become more valuable for both sides of the marketplace.

Thus, monitoring the increased take rate, over time, together with the growing community of buyers and sellers, is a crucial way to understand whether eBay’s marketplace becomes more or less valuable. 

How does eBay primarily spend money to make money?

To make money, companies must spend money.

Depending on the business model you might also be running, the essential expenses to make the bottom line work out might change.

In eBay, those key expenses can be summarized as customer support, site operations, and payment processing, which amounted to over $2.3 billion, or over 22% of its total revenues in 2018.

eBay Annual Report 2019

Other key expenses are related to sales and marketing (32% of total revenues in 2018), primarily consisting of advertising and marketing program costs (both online and offline), employee compensation, user coupons and rewards, contractor costs, facilities costs, and depreciation on equipment.

Other key expenses related to product development and other general and administrative expenses.

eBay spin-off of PayPal

I covered in the PayPal business model how the company acquired at a certain point by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

At the time, PayPal needed a strong payment processing system within its core platform.

As the years went by, PayPal’s growth went far beyond eBay, which had worked as a primary growth driver for the company in the first years of operations. Until PayPal itself became more valuable than eBay.

Indeed, by 2018 PayPal made over $15 billion in revenues and over $2 billion in net income. In October 2018, PayPal’s market cap passed $120 billion, compared to eBay’s $32 billion.